Blood Sacrifice
by lunarcaterpillar
Summary: Resubmission of an old story that got deleted from my account; Tony and Ziva are stranded after an undercover op goes bad. Tiva


Title: Blood Sacrifice

Author: lunarcaterpillar

Pairing: Tiva

Rating: T

Spoilers: None

Ziva finally woke up. She felt like she hadn't moved in a few days and sighed loudly. With a great deal of effort she opened her eyes; it was dark.

"Where am I?" she whispered.

"I don't know." The voice was Tony's. He was nearby. Ziva reached out her hand and tried to find him; his hand grabbed hers and he helped her sit up. She had been resting with her head on his leg. He gave her some water and she drank, feeling like it had been years since she had tasted it. "How do you feel?" he asked.

"Terrible. How long have I been asleep?"

"Not too long. It's still night." Ziva blinked a few times and looked up again; she could make out pinpoints of light, stars. Then she lost focus and had to close her eyes again. She must have been hit on the head; she felt like she had no center of equilibrium and the world seemed to keep moving back and forth, almost like…

She put her hand out again and felt something like plastic that she was leaning against. She reached past that and immersed her hand in warm, salty water. They were in a small life raft, floating somewhere in the Pacific.

"You got me off the ship?" she said to Tony.

"Had no choice," he replied. "They were going to kill you."

Ziva tried to remember, but the memories kept falling apart as soon as she got hold of them. She only got little snippets; words in a language she didn't understand, a stinging sensation on her arm and then a strange warmth washing over her body, then nothing.

"I only remember being taken onto the ship with the other girls," she said. "Then something must have happened."

"When I found you," Tony said. Pain was in his voice. "Iskander Kuwat had you in his quarters. You could barely move."

"They knew I was undercover."

"Yeah. I guess."

"But they didn't kill me when they found out?"

"You were chained to the bed with a needle in your arm; I'm thinking they had other plans." They had drugged her. No wonder her memory was so fuzzy. She didn't have to be told what they were drugging her for. She raised the water bottle to her lips again.

"Don't. Not unless you really need it. We don't have much." Ziva put down the bottle and closed it tightly.

"Enough for how long?" she asked.

"We'll survive until Gibbs finds us." There wasn't a trace of doubt in Tony's voice. Ziva knew their confidence was well-placed. She started feeling drowsy again and put her head on Tony's shoulder.

"We are still going to Michigan when we get back, aren't we?" she said. "After this, I think I will need a vacation."

"As soon as you're well enough to travel, we're gone." Tony looked at the horizon; there was a grey patch that was the beginning of dawn. "That reminds me." Out of his jacket, he pulled a small, black, velvet box. He opened it and used up a few seconds of flashlight power showing Ziva the engagement ring he had bought for her as he slipped it on to her hand. She smiled.

"I thought it would have to wait until we got back," she said. "You came all this way with it?"

"Once I heard that we were going to come get you, I had to," Tony replied. "Thought it might cheer you up after all the near death stuff."

"It's beautiful, Tony." Then Ziva closed her eyes again and within minutes he heard her start to snore. Tony gently lowered her down and crawled to the other end of the life raft. Then he started to set up the tent that was built into the raft. There were no clouds and they would need protection from the sun. Ziva was very weak already and he didn't want her to get worse. Also the tarp was bright orange and would help rescue crews to find them. He knew that Gibbs was out there right now, and he would find them. He knew it.

Four days before—Sunday

"So what do you think about this one?" Ziva asked him, emerging from his bedroom wearing a halter-style black top studded with gold and rhinestones that exposed her back and most of her front. A clasp between her breasts was the only thing holding it together in front; on her midriff it was cut down the middle and the opening got wider as it got closer to her waist. Tony got up from where he was lounging on the couch, moved over to her, and touched her back. Then he pulled her close to him and kissed her.

"I see that I've achieved the desired reaction," Ziva said.

"Oh, yeah," Tony said, kissing her hungrily again. "So that one's out too." He released her. "I'm thinking show less skin in front. Your cover, this Maria Hernandez chick? She doesn't really seem like the stripper type."

"For the last time, I'm not a stripper; I'm a waitress and you do realize that, to infiltrate a sex trade ring, I have to look like I'm interested in sex."

"Well, yeah, but most of these outfits make me want to drag you into the bedroom right now, and with some of them I wouldn't even bother with the bedroom. You aren't going to do very well if every guy who sees you wants to do you on the floor of the club. You'd have to punch all of them and how would that look?" He lay back down on the couch. "I like all the little shiny things on it, though."

"You know what I think?" Ziva said. She walked over to him, kicked her shoes off and sat down, straddling him. Tony smiled. "I think you just don't want me to do this."

"Just now figured that out? And I thought your English was getting better. So my repeated statements of 'Ziva, I don't think this is a good idea' got past you, huh?"

"I thought maybe you were just trying to be chivalrous by worrying about your girlfriend," Ziva said. "Tony, I am very sorry if it bothers you, but—"

"But you're still going to do it."

"I am lucky enough to have the freedom to choose who I sleep with," Ziva said. "If I have the chance to give other women who aren't so lucky that same freedom, I think I should take it. Much is expected from those to whom much is given."

"Yeah, but—Ziva." Tony sighed and touched the belly button ring that she had actually gotten because it was difficult to fake and that he was enjoying very much. The one she would be wearing undercover contained a GPS tracking chip just in case something went wrong. "Are you going to have to _actually _sleep with them?" he asked.

"Ohhh," Ziva said. "So that's what's bothering you. Well, Tony, I can only say that—I promise you that I will not sleep with anyone that I don't absolutely have to for the operation to succeed. Happy?"

"That helps. Kind of. When are you leaving?"

"Tomorrow night I start work as a waitress at the Blue Water in New York and hopefully will soon be approached by people from the prostitution ring. My cover is exactly the kind of girl that they would be likely to take; single, no children, no family in the area, wants to be rich and famous and willing to do just about anything to get there. They will tell me that they are taking me to California to try to get me a break into the business and as soon as I get there, I will be loaded onto a ship bound for Singapore. Once there, I will meet up with the man that Britain has undercover there and between the two of us, with back-up, we will blow this wide open and save the lives of a great many people. I'm very pleased that I get to do this."

"If it weren't for you and your—for lack of a better word, notoriety—that you got while you were still with Mossad, NCIS never would have gotten in on this."

"You don't know that," Ziva said. "We found the intel on where they were getting the girls on the East Coast. I was selected because of my experience with undercover work."

"I know. You're amazing." The look in Tony's eyes said that he meant it. Ziva smiled and got off of him.

"I still have to pick my outfit for tomorrow," she said. "Are you still helping me?"

"Sure. Let's see the next one."

"And keep in mind," Ziva said, as she headed back into his bedroom. "The sooner I decide what to wear tomorrow, the sooner you get to decide which one you're going to be taking off of me tonight." Her dark eyes flashed with a steamy look and she disappeared.

After a few more tries they picked a green top that showed a little less skin, but still had the sparkly things on it; at Tony's request, Ziva put the black top back on. Tony continued where he had left off and dragged her into the bedroom. They made it to the bed despite a few episodes of deep kissing and legs on hips against the wall on the way there. They laid down and Tony was involved in undoing the clasp with his tongue (Ziva had bet that he couldn't do it and he was proving her wrong) when with a jerk it occurred to him that this was the last time he was going be able to be with her like this for quite some time.

"Ziva," he said, when the clasp was undone and his tongue had made a lateral move. "How long will you be gone?"

"A month," Ziva replied breathlessly. She paused to moan softly. "Maybe two." Tony slid the top off of her completely and looked at her while he took his own shirt off. A crazy thought was in his mind. It was far too early and certainly not the right time. But the sense of urgency, the one that had nothing to do with his nether regions, was overwhelming him.

Ziva grabbed him around the neck with one arm, pulled him down and kissed him roughly while the other hand found the waistband of his jeans, undid the button and zipper and went beyond it. For a moment, arousal made Tony ignore what was nagging at him and he focused on the moment. Once he was distracted, Ziva flipped him over and straddled his thighs. Her hands ran up the length of his chest, then she bent down and with her tongue teased the places on his abdomen where Tony was quite sensitive (he refused to say 'ticklish'). She smiled evilly at his reaction.

"Oh, you're going to get it now," Tony said. She bent to kiss him again and he took the opportunity to grab her shoulders, turn her on her back and hold her down. She pretended to struggle a little; Tony only pressed harder on her to hold her still. He felt her legs wrap around his hips and she continued pulling his jeans and boxers, which were halfway down already, off with her feet (she was rather flexible).Tony managed to get them all the way off without letting Ziva go. Once naked, he reached down and touched her inner thigh, moving upward until she gasped, rolled her head to the side with a moan and he felt her resistance relax. His hand started to take off the underwear that she was wearing.

Tony felt that he had to. Seeing her underneath him, warm, flushed, sweaty, eyes closed with a blissful half-smile on her face, feeling her chest against his as they both gasped for breath, and knowing that she wouldn't be there the next night, Tony couldn't stop himself. He removed the last barrier between them, but waited a moment. He bent close to her, putting his mouth right beside her ear; she was trembling with desire, as was he.

"Ziva," he whispered. In response, she moaned and arched her body toward him. He wondered if she was even paying attention to him. But something told him that he had to do this now. "Will you marry me?" All her muscles tensed in surprise; he raised his head to look at her. She had the exact look he had known she would.

"Did you read in some magazine that making marriage proposals during foreplay turns women on?" she asked. "Even if it works on some women, it doesn't work on me. Now shut up and get on with it."

"Ziva, I'm being serious." He stared into her eyes, hoping he could communicate something of how he felt. Maybe she would understand it better than he did. "I love you," he said. "And I want you to be my wife."

"You're asking me this now?"

"You know I never was really good with timing." He tried to grin at her, but could only manage a soft smile; he was a little nervous about what was going to happen now. Ziva's face changed as it dawned on her that he really was serious.

"You—you are really asking me to marry you?" she said.

"Yeah." He was still close enough to her to kiss her somewhere between her cheek and her neck and he did, rather tenderly. "Say yes?"

"Tony—"

"Say yes." He nibbled at her ear a little. Their bodies were very close and she was still trembling. He wanted her badly—he could barely control himself—but he wanted her to agree even more. If said during the actual sex, the word 'yes' could mean a lot of things. "C'mon, say it." Ziva turned her head and kissed him.

"Yes," she said. Then she rolled him over and, since it seemed to her that Tony wasn't in any hurry, took things into her own hands, not to mention other areas.

They waited until they were both breathing normally again before speaking.

"So do you still want to marry me now that your brain is back in control of your body again?" she asked.

"Of course I do," Tony said. "Is this really so hard to believe?"

"The way you were looking at me in those clothes, I wouldn't put lust-induced delusions beyond you." Tony put an arm around her abdomen and held her against him with her back to his chest.

"What about you?" he said. "Saying yes wasn't just to get me to 'get on with it', was it?" Sexually, Ziva was the most like a man of any woman that Tony had ever met. She tended to be aggressive and impatient during foreplay, didn't take long to get 'there', and didn't demand anything more than a minimum of physical contact once they were done.

"No," Ziva said. He could hear her smiling. "I want to marry you too. And I'm glad that you asked me now. It will give me something nice to think about on the way to Singapore." She touched his hand and interlaced her fingers with his.

"We'll do it as soon as you get back," Tony said. "We can just disappear, elope somewhere."

"Elope?"

"That's where you run away and get married without telling anyone."

"I thought it was a type of fruit."

"No, that's a cant—" He stopped when he realized that he was just going to confuse her more. "It means that when you get back, we'll go away somewhere, just us, and get married there."

"You don't want anyone at the wedding?"

"After months without you, I won't want to share you with anyone," he said. "And we can celebrate with our friends when we get back. But I want it to be just you and me when we do it—that is, if it's ok with you."

"That sounds wonderful, actually," Ziva said.

"And I have the perfect place," Tony said, after a moment's thought. He went to his bookcase, pulled out a photo album and removed a picture. It was of a bright sunny day, trees grown thick around a bay of calm blue water. Wildflowers bloomed along the path to the shore. He showed it to Ziva. "My family has this cabin on the lake in Michigan. It's miles from anywhere. We can stay as long as we want—just you and me." He looked at her tenderly and she beamed back at him. "Also, I've been planning to ask you for awhile, so I do have a ring; it's just not here. I had to order it. It should be in pretty soon and it'll be waiting for you when you get back." Suddenly he had to hide his face from her and he took the picture to put it back in the album. "You will be back?" Somehow it turned into a question.

"I will." Ziva touched his hand and stroked it gently. Her voice said that she was holding back tears. He was glad that he wasn't the only one.

"Actually, you know what?" He pulled the picture back out. "You take this. Keep it with you in New York. Add it to your cover or something."

"My cover is supposed to be from Miami," Ziva said.

"Then say it's where you went to summer camp. I want you to have something, you know, even though I don't have a ring yet. Something you can look at and remember me by." Ziva took the picture and placed it on the nightstand beside her.

"Thank you," she said. Then she settled back down in bed. "We should get some rest, I guess," she said. Tony turned out the lights, laid back down and put his arm around her again; both their eyes closed. But neither fell asleep.

The case had started a week before the proposal; they had gone to Norfolk to look at the body of a sailor who had apparently drowned while swimming drunk. In the course of the investigation, they had found another body; a young woman, washed into a drain culvert nearby. They had taken both bodies back to NCIS.

"Fingerprints confirmed that this is Ensign Devon Redcliff," Tony said as he, Gibbs and McGee walked into Autopsy to see the two bodies lying on the tables. "Talked to his drinking buddies; they said that the ensign had a few too many after a bad breakup, told his roommate that he was going to go out to the bay to prove his freestyle skills."

"And he didn't stop him?" Ducky asked.

"The roommate said he didn't think that Redcliff would actually make it to the bay," McGee said. "He was pretty out of it."

"His tox screen said as much. His blood alcohol level was almost 0.1; I'm not surprised that he was quickly overwhelmed by the sea. There is an old Japanese legend about a man in similar circumstances who was said to have been pulled to the bottom by the people of the sea to be executed for trespassing. But when he got to their underwater city, he—"

"Any word on our other guest, Duck?"

"I sent fingerprints and a DNA sample up to Abby."

"Which I am running this very second," Abby chimed in via the camera from the lab. "Nothing came up from the fingerprints; she's not in any database, but the DNA will give us a match soon, Gibbs."

"That won't be necessary," Ziva said, coming in behind them. She handed Gibbs a printout with the girl's driver's license. "Her name was Shelby Smith, 25, of New York; her roommate reported her missing two weeks ago."

Gibbs turned his back to compare the driver's license photo to the body on the table and while he wasn't looking, Tony and Ziva indulged for half a second in a sultry glance before turning their attention back to the case at hand. They had been secretively dating for almost eight months, and in all that time, Gibbs had not slapped them for it. They were sure that he could tell, so they assumed that he was ok with it. Looking was all they ever did at work.

"Good work, Ziva," Gibbs said. "How'd you find her?"

"I recognized this symbol stamped on her arm here; she worked at a club in New York called the Blue Water. I called, got the names of their employees and ran them against missing persons reports."

"Or you could have just talked to the manager; I'm sure he could have told you if one of the girls had gone missing for two weeks," McGee said. It was a point that he had expected Tony to make; it still hadn't clicked for him why Tony was being so nice to Ziva all of a sudden.

"I don't think he could or would have told me." Ziva's expression said that there was more. "In the past six months, eighteen girls employed by the club have suddenly stopped showing up for work; ten were reported missing. The NYPD did a cursory investigation and then let the cases go." No one needed to be told what that meant. "Of all the cases, this is the first to turn up a body."

"Some kind of super rich serial killer?" Tony said.

"Or a prostitution ring," Gibbs said. His was a statement. Ziva nodded.

"I ran this past my contacts at Interpol. They have a pretty good idea who might be taking all the girls."

She also carried a folder containing covert photos of a bald, heavily muscled Indonesian man. When his expression wasn't of pure arrogance, it was evil.

"Iskander Kuwat, born on the island of Java in Indonesia, currently living in Singapore, thought to be the head of one of the largest sex trade operations in the world. There are reports of him kidnapping women from Europe, the US, India, China—almost everywhere. His business caters to people who are, literally, among the richest one hundred people in the world and he boasts that he offers his clients anything they could possibly want in a woman." Unconsciously, her hand reached for a nearby scalpel and twirled it like a knife for a moment before Tony took it away from her.

"So Interpol knows all this about him and can't nail him? He's got to slip up somewhere."

"Tony, you should know how hard it is to catch people like this. Not that they aren't working on it."

"So if they wanted Shelby Smith for the sex trade, why is she dead on our table?" Gibbs said.

"I think I can answer that question, Jethro," Ducky said. "The poor girl died of anaphylactic shock. Her larynx was almost completely swollen shut and I found massive amounts of histamine in her system. A bee sting, I believe; I found several of them on her back and shoulders."

"She died while they were moving them and so they dumped the body."

"Yes; God only knows where. The current would have moved her body along the shoreline and with all the storms we've been having, I can't even make an educated guess as to which direction she would have come from." Gibbs appeared to be thinking deeply.

"You contact the family, Ziva?"

"Not yet," Ziva said. "I didn't want to tell them until we had—well, something to tell them."

"About?"

"Why she went missing and what we are doing to find the people who abducted her."

"She died of natural causes; there's nothing to investigate and we have no proof and no leads on what happened to her," McGee said, earning himself a dark look from Ziva.

"And we don't investigate civilian cases. Turn it over to NYPD and notify the family," Gibbs said. Ziva opened her mouth to protest; Tony stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. Ziva gave him a look and then walked out of Autopsy, looking upset. Tony and McGee followed. Gibbs looked at Ducky and then walked out without a word.

Ziva went over to Tony's apartment that afternoon and paced his living room with an irritable expression while Tony cooked hamburger patties wearing a red-and-white striped apron that said 'Kiss the Cook'. He had put it on to cheer her up a little; it didn't seem to be working.

"Hey, what do you want on your burger?" Tony yelled from the kitchen. There was no answer; he looked into the living room. Ziva was sitting on the couch, resting her elbows on her knees, staring at the floor. Tony sighed, turned off the stove, gave up any hopes he had had of seeing her naked that night, and went to talk to her.

"Ok. What's wrong?" he said, sitting next to her. She didn't say anything. "C'mon, tell me."

"I was just thinking," Ziva said. "What happened to Shelby Smith—dying in the way that she did—is better than what would have been waiting for her if she had made it to Singapore."

"I know," Tony said. "It's hard to deal with it. But each of us is only one person. We can't get rid of all the bad guys in the world."

"I have always known that," Ziva said. "I just—" She growled and made some motions with her hands. "It makes me so angry. This man is rich enough to be able to laugh in the face of every law enforcement agency that gets close to him."

"Have enough money, you can be God," Tony said.

"You and I grew up with money. Are we enslaving tens of thousands of women around the world?"

"You feeling guilty?"

"I don't know." She sighed. "You know me; I'm not good with feelings. But it bothers me. A lot." She leaned back and sighed, the kind of sigh that told Tony that he wasn't going to like what she said next.

"Interpol put me in connection with MI-5," she said. "They had been trying to break open the organization from the inside and were pleased to hear that we had intel on where they were getting the girls in the US. Already they had an idea where they were shipping from, but never where it originated. Now, they have an opportunity."

"Ok," Tony said, wondering where this was going.

"They need someone on the real inside," Ziva said. "Someone who knows where everything starts and ends. In other words, a woman undercover there." Now they were at the part that Tony wasn't liking.

"They asked you?" he said.

"They've heard of me through Mossad," Ziva said. "They know of my experience in undercover work and that I would be able to do the job well."

"Granted, but why not the CIA or someone? You know, people who are supposed to do this kind of thing regularly."

"I think they asked me because NCIS got the information and should have some kind of reward for it."

"This is their idea of a reward? Sending you on a dangerous undercover mission?"

"Yes; this is a major international case. It's a compliment to be involved in this." Tony leaned back and thought for a moment.

"You want to do this?" he asked.

"Yes," Ziva said. "I think it will be quite…satisfying to rid the world of these people." It was a moment before Tony spoke.

"Ok," he said. He managed to smile. "I'm happy for you." Then he tried to laugh. "Have you told Gibbs yet?"

Monday

Tony came in with a face that just dared someone to piss him off. Gibbs gave him a look of understanding.

"Ziva left?" he said.

"Flew to New York yesterday morning," Tony said. "No telling when she'll be moving. Interpol said they'll keep us in the loop." Tony was so angry that he actually took a shot at Gibbs. "You didn't have to give her permission to go, Boss."

"Oh, wow; I'm sorry, DiNozzo. Here I am, thinking we're all in this business to catch dirtbags." [for some reason this dialogue doesn't sound like Gibbs to me. I don't think he would be this sarcastic] He gave him the look. "I apologize for the inconvenience of being away from your girlfriend for a couple of months." McGee raised his head, started to say something, then thought better of it and went back to work. "It's part of the job, Tony. Deal with it or find some other place to work." Tony growled and sat back down at his desk. McGee went to find some less tense place to be for a few minutes. "By the way," Gibbs added. "You have a message. One of the jewelry stores called; said your order was in." Then they both went silent, Tony reassured that Gibbs understood the situation.

About halfway through the morning, Gibbs' phone rang.

"Gibbs." A pause. "Yeah, be there in a minute." He got up. "Let's go, Tony."

"What's going on, boss?"

"Interpol, on teleconference, wants to speak to Officer David's superior." Tony felt his throat start to close. He got up and followed Gibbs, who was moving very fast.

Interpol Agent Lane appeared to have all the lack of emotion one might expect from any intelligence officer, but especially a British one. He calmly stood there and informed them that the undercover man, Agent Washington, had been killed.

"Are you sure?" Tony said, as soon as soon as he said it. ? "I mean, he's all the way across the world in Singapore; how can you know? Maybe your intel is off."

"Well," Lane said. "MI-5 did receive Agent Washington's head via the post this morning, but I can see how you Americans might consider that leaping to conclusions." At least the man could be sarcastic at need.

"Do you know if Officer David has been compromised?" Gibbs asked.

"We found photos of her disembarking the plane and leaving La Guardia inside Washington's mouth."

"What about her tracking chip? Has she left New York yet?" Tony demanded.

"She has. According to our sensors, she is on her way to California right now."

"They have her and they know she's undercover?" Tony's voice trembled just slightly.

"Yes, Agent DiNozzo."

"Call us when she lands," Gibbs said. Then he stopped the transmission. Tony was standing there staring at the screen. "DiNozzo! Let's go!" Tony ran after him, forcing himself not to think about what they could be doing to Ziva right then.

Present day

The sun was relentless. Tony knew that he should be glad that they hadn't had a storm, but the days seemed to last forever. He was lying inside the tent, but even there the light reflecting off of the water was hurting his eyes. Ziva was beside him, asleep. He let her rest as much as she wanted; what else was there to do? It was blazing hot during the day and he wouldn't try to wake her up until the sun had set and it was cooler. He was giving her most of both their shares of what they had to eat and drink and it seemed to be helping her. But still she needed medical attention. He hoped that Gibbs found them soon. It had been almost three days already. Tony had stayed in the tent for most of that time with his eyes closed. The more he looked at the water, the thirstier he became.

Just as the sun was going down, Ziva stirred. She lifted her head and half-smiled at him.

"Did I miss anything?" she asked.

"Just the usual. A couple of jellyfish came by trying to save us money on long-distance calling. A barbershop quartet of dolphins came by. You know; nothing interesting." Ziva smiled. Tony rummaged in the bag and pulled out a bottle of water. "Here," he said. "Have a drink." Ziva opened it and took a small sip. Then she held it out to Tony, but he didn't take it. He had his eyes closed and his jaw clenched.

"Here, Tony," she said. "You can have some."

"No," he said. "Put it away."

"Tony—"

"I had some earlier. Put it away."

"No, you didn't; I know you. Don't—"

"I said put it away, Ziva!" Tony didn't open his eyes until he heard her put the bottle in the bag and close it. He relaxed and took a deep breath.

"Why are you doing this, Tony?" Ziva said softly.

"You were already dehydrated when I found you," Tony replied. "You need the water more than I do. Don't worry about me."

"It's not you I'm worried about; it's what Gibbs is going to do to me if you're not here when he finds us," Ziva said. "And you have a larger body mass than me; you need the water more."

"You saying I'm fat?"

"Tony, will you please be serious?" It was hard for Tony to focus on what she was saying. He could barely keep control of himself. The desire for water—to take all that they had and just drink it—constantly threatened to take him over. He couldn't even look at it anymore. Every moment, his mind was screaming at him, driving him crazy and the bobbing up and down that the raft had been doing every minute of the past few days kept reminding him what they were surrounded by. He was truly afraid that if they were out there too much longer, he wouldn't be able to stop himself.

"I am serious!" he said, or rather, yelled. "You take the water. Don't let me see it, don't even let me hear it. Otherwise, when Gibbs finds us, he'll find two bodies instead of just one!" He opened his jacket to let her see the wound left by the ricochet from the gunfight on the ship. It wasn't a deep wound and under normal circumstances wouldn't have been life-threatening. But it had weakened him and he had lost blood. It made it that much less likely that he would survive. Ziva sat back, hugging her knees.

"That's why you won't take anything?" she said.

"No point," Tony said. "I eat or drink anything, it'll just come right back out. I'm just trying to conserve resources here."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"So you wouldn't worry about me."

"I'm supposed to be worrying about you," Ziva said. She twisted the ring on her finger back and forth. "I'm going to be your wife." Tony made a sound like laughter.

"You plan on marrying a corpse?" he asked. "I can't see you doing that. Abby, maybe; not you."

"Tony, stop it!"

"Why?" Tony said. "So you can be in denial for awhile?"

Ziva didn't say anything for a moment. "It's not something even you can joke about," she said.

"Hey, I'm the one who's dying, honey. I think I have the right to do it by my rules." He paused for a moment. "If it makes you feel any better, I didn't charge the ring. Paid cash. You won't have to worry about it. If you want, you can even sell it to pay for my funeral. I know I wrote in my will that I want at least one girl from Playboy there, but it's really not that important. Make sure whoever's giving the eulogy works in all the movie quotes I requested, though."

Ziva didn't say anything. He couldn't see her anymore in the failing light, but he could hear her crying.

Despite the pain, Tony crawled out of the tent. It was just too overwhelming. He wanted water. He was desperate. To the point where his fiancé was crying and all he wanted to do was drink the tears off of her face. He looked around; there was no other light than the stars. Nothing that might be a ship. He was a little surprised that he had lasted this long. They had been out there for three days. And he wasn't dying fast enough, not to be able to reassure himself that he would be dead before he went crazy and used up everything that Ziva would need to survive. Or did something worse. Just as he was waking up, things came into his mind, things that he couldn't be sure that he wouldn't do, if he was still alive when his mind snapped.

He looked at the horizon, then at the waves tossing the tiny boat. It was ridiculously ironic, just as the saying went. Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink.

Tony and Gibbs were on a plane to California within the hour. Tony was talking to MI-5 on his cellphone even though the flight attendant told him to hang up. He pulled out his badge, did his best Gibbs impression, and she backed away slowly and didn't bother him again.

"They got some intel on the dock that Kuwat is using at the Long Beach Port," Tony said. "They don't know how reliable it is, but it's the best we have."

"Do they know how long before they move the girls?"

"Not a clue. She could be on the ship right now." Tony made a funny noise in his throat. "Or at the bottom of the bay."

"Shut up, DiNozzo," Gibbs said.

"I should never have let her go."

"Tony," Gibbs said. "Do you honestly think you could have stopped Ziva from doing something she wanted to do?" Tony thought for a moment.

"I see your point, boss," he said.

"Now shut up. We'll be there in half-an-hour."

Tony spent the time until the plane landed trying to breathe properly and turning the box containing Ziva's ring over and over in his hand. He had gotten it from the jewelers, as they had to wait before they could fly to California. It gave him something to think about. He was going to find Ziva so he could give her the ring. It kept him calm while he was trapped on a plane, unable to do anything to save the woman he loved.

When they landed, Tony charged off the plane through the airport and out the door before he realized that he didn't even know where he was going. Gibbs made him sit down and try to think while he coordinated things with the local cops. The ship hadn't left the dock; Gibbs called the harbor control to prevent them from leaving.

"We're headed to the dock," Gibbs said. He looked Tony in the eyes. "We are going to go there and we are going to do our jobs. There are other women on that ship besides just Ziva." Tony nodded.

"I know," he said. "Let's go."

The ship was large and very ordinary looking. Shadowed by local cops, Tony and Gibbs entered with the customary shouting and holding of guns. They started firing when they entered the captain's quarters and saw a gun pointed at them. When the captain dropped after being shot in the chest, the first mate dropped his gun, put his hands up and started babbling in Javanese.

"We found the girls," one of the cops said. "Twenty-five of them down below, scared to death. We can house them with women's shelters until we can get them back to New York. And I'm sorry, Agent Gibbs; we can't find your Officer David. We've searched everywhere." Tony held his gun to the first mate's head.

"The woman, the spy, the one that was undercover; where is she?" The man was too scared to speak. Tony grabbed his shirt collar. "Where is she?"

"Boss. He take her. In there." The man pointed. Gun still at the ready and forcing himself to act like an agent and not a terrified man desperate to get his fiancé back, Tony kicked open the door. Gibbs followed him in. Tony almost dropped his gun. No one was in the room. All he saw were bloodstains on the floor and in the middle of them a tiny curved piece of metal with a blue jewel on the end. Ziva's bellybutton ring.

"Hold on, Tony." Gibbs stopped him from picking it up with his bare hands, picked it up with gloves and put it in an evidence bag. "She didn't die here."

"What?"

"This isn't enough blood for her to be dead. Look." Tony did and realized that Gibbs was right. There wasn't that much. Not as much as fear had made it out to be.

"Doesn't mean she's not dead."

"Oh, ok. I guess, if we're going to assume that, we can just go home now." Gibbs walked out of the room. Tony touched the ring in his pocket and looked at the blood. No, Ziva wasn't dead.

"Sorry, Boss," Tony said. "Let's find her."

Gibbs grabbed the man in the crew that he had been talking to, one who spoke more English and dragged him over to the first mate.

"Where did they take her?" he asked. It took a little time and a few repetitions of the question, each time more vehemently, before he got an answer.

"The boss left," the sailor said. "In his private ship. He took her with him."

"When did they leave?"

"Several hours ago. Headed north along the coast."

Gibbs left the rest of the men to the cops and the FBI who had been called by this time and was on the phone to the Coast Guard before they left the room. Tony scrambled after him.

"What are we going to do, Boss?" Tony asked. He was too angry and scared to think clearly and hoped that Gibbs wasn't going to make him come up with a plan.

"Go after her. Why do you think I called the Coast Guard?"

"But, if he sees us coming and knows we're going to board him, he could just kill her before we can even get on the boat."

"If you have a better idea, I'm open to it." Tony sighed. Gibbs got in his face again.

"Stop letting your emotions control you," he said. "Put them aside and think and we might be able to get her back. Keep this up and you won't ever see her again." It was the verbal equivalent of a headslap. Tony took a deep breath.

"Ok, Boss," he said. "I've got an idea."

At gunpoint, the surprisingly easily intimidated first mate radioed Kuwat's boat, telling him that there was bad weather to the north and there had already been wrecks and fatalities. He told him that he had heard a report telling any vessels in the area to find a place to make port. Within minutes, the Coast Guard helos surveying the area said that they had found his ship, a hideous-looking yacht that was the kind of thing that you would expect a bastard like him to have, moving into a bay not far away. Tony and Gibbs were there within two hours. By then it was getting dark. They moved quietly along the dock; they couldn't see any lights on board. Tony was uncomfortably aware of the feeling of the boat moving down in the water as they moved onto the boat. Gibbs surveyed the dock; Tony went into the rooms, still holding his gun. He opened the door to a bedroom, looking for anything that might have been Ziva. Then he heard a low moan from the bed. He forced himself to make sure the room was clear before running to the bed and shining a flashlight on her face. It was Ziva.

He wrapped his arms around her and whispered her name, so happy to have found her alive. She responded only with a whimper; her body fell back onto the bed when he let go of her. Gently, he sat her up and turned on the lamp on the nearby table.

It was even harder to focus on what he was doing when he saw that she was naked, there were bruises on her face and body and the blood on her abdomen said that her bellybutton ring had been removed none too gently. He untied the tourniquet still on her arm. At least that explained why she was so out of it. The other arm was chained to the head of the bed, and that explained why she was still alive; Kuwat must have wanted her for himself. The chains would hold her until she was addicted enough to the drugs that they were unnecessary; she wouldn't leave. It was a common method of keeping women in sex slavery. He had to shake Ziva roughly to get her to wake up, but finally she opened her eyes.

"Tony?" she said.

"Yeah," he replied. "You've got to wake up. I'm going to get you out of here, but I need your help." He knew he had to get her out of there as quickly as possible. But part of him kind of hoped that he would have an excuse to blow out the brains of the man who had done this to her. "Do you know where the key is?"

"He has it," she said. Just as she said that, they heard two sounds; one was a loud splash as if something had fallen off the boat and the second was the engine starting up. Tony left the room and ran up on to the deck. The boat was moving away very fast and he could just see Gibbs splashing in the water, swimming for the dock as it got further and further away. Tony couldn't leave. He wasn't going to go without Ziva.

He had stupidly left his gun in the room where Ziva was, so he had little defense against the man behind him, presumably the one who had pushed Gibbs into the water. He tried to attack Tony from the back; Tony tried to pull him over his shoulder, but hadn't realized how big he was. He ended up pulling Tony down and stepping on his hand. But Tony had learned a few things from Ziva about flexibility. He kicked the guy in the back of the knee and once he was bending down, the groin area. Tony got up, grabbed him by his hair and bashed his head into the railing. Since even that didn't knock the man unconscious, he then pushed him overboard.

It didn't help much, as he was then struck from behind and the lights went out.

When he awoke, he was sitting against the bed that Ziva was in. Kuwat was standing over him, making an angry speech, directed at Ziva, about how he was going to kill him. Apparently he took great offense at Ziva, being a woman, trying to bring down his operation. He intended to make her suffer, he said. Tony turned his head to look at her and just before his head was kicked back to its original position, he saw a glimpse of metal in Ziva's hand. She had his gun.

"Hey, look, man," he said. "I've got no beef with you, ok? I was just following orders, trying to get this girl back, she's a co-worker of mine, but not a very close one, right?" A little softer than the sound of his voice, he thought he could hear Ziva turning the lock. He kept talking. "I don't even like her that much; do you know that she hit me on the head with a stapler once? She said I had no sensitivity toward women. Can you believe that? This chick is crazy, so I say you can have her if you really want her and if you wouldn't mind throwing me overboard like that other guy, let's call it a day, shall we?" He didn't hear anything else.

"We are a hundred miles out at sea," Kuwat said. "Killing you here would be more merciful." He raised his gun.

Ziva fired first, but was too weak to aim and only blew a hole in the wall. But it distracted Kuwat long enough for Tony to get up, move his gun hand away and punch him in the face. He was stunned and fell back. Tony grabbed the gun from Ziva and fired. Kuwat slumped against the wall, hopefully dead.

Tony grabbed the key from around Kuwat's neck. He pulled the chain off Ziva's wrist and helped her stand up; she was more awake and could walk, but just barely. He dressed her in a jacket and pants that were much too big for her, but were all he could find in the closet. They got out on deck. There were gunshots right behind them. Tony dove into the nearest room he could find and covered Ziva to protect her. It was just a utility closet, but there were life rafts there and bags of supplies. He heard heavy footsteps running; there were more people on the boat than he had thought. He didn't want to, but it was looking like their only option was to go overboard. Gibbs would find them.

The door opened; Tony was waiting and hit him with the heavy pole used for rescuing anyone who fell overboard and then he rushed out of the room with Ziva, threw the raft into the water and jumped. The raft inflated as soon as it hit the water. Tony pulled Ziva up to breathe and then stayed under for a moment. He didn't hear anything. Finally, he came up, helped Ziva into the raft and climbed in himself. Ziva fell asleep almost immediately; Tony stared at the night sky for awhile. Then did his best to patch up the bullet wound he had in his left side. It hurt badly, but he thought he could manage to keep it hidden from Ziva. He hoped they could both survive. But if it could be only one, it was going to be her.

Present Day

Tony couldn't feel his legs and couldn't move anything else. The only good thing about it was that thirst and hunger were starting to dissipate. The world was starting to fall apart in his mind. Everything was dim and cold; he barely knew that Ziva was still beside him. The pain was going, too. Ziva had found the bullet, lodged in his side in the subcutaneous tissue. He had lost so much weight that there wasn't much of that left and all Ziva had to do was make a small incision and pull it out. Tony had known that he was almost dead when Ziva wiped the whole thing with alcohol and it wasn't enough even to make him whimper.

"You'll be fine, Tony," Ziva said. She was still in denial. Being Ziva, she thought she could do anything, he guessed, even save his life. "The bullet didn't hit your stomach and you didn't even lose that much blood. You'll live until Gibbs finds us."

"I didn't know that 'fine' extended to lying here unable to move," he gasped out. "Ziva. I've almost died lots of times. I know when I've past the point of no return."

"And I have seen people survive worse. You will live." Tony reached out and took her hand.

"Ziva, please accept that I'm dying so you'll listen to me," he said. "Do whatever you have to do to survive. I mean it. _Anything_. I'll be dead. I don't care." Ziva sighed and then sniffled a little and he knew that she knew what he was talking about. "I love you," he said. "I just wish—I guess I should have asked you sooner. I wanted to marry you. And have children with you. And be in a nursing home together when we're both old and senile. Because I would have loved you even if I couldn't remember your name." Ziva was crying again. "Don't cry. You're wasting water."

"I can spare a little for you," Ziva said. "You're dying because you gave me everything we had and I have to live with that so don't try to tell me not to cry."

"I'm going to miss you," Tony said. "Would you believe that it's actually kind of like being at the movies? When the lights are going out and everything gets quiet. You're waiting in the dark and you know everything else is there—I know you're there—but I'm somewhere else."

"That should make you feel better," Ziva said. "That it's something pleasant. At least you won't be scared."

"I am a little scared. What if I'm stuck watching generic romantic comedies and computer graphics kids movies for all eternity?" Ziva half-laughed through her tears. Then she laid down and grasped at him, burying her face in his neck.

"Please don't go, Tony."

"You're talking to the wrong person about it, sweetie." What little he could still see started to melt, like paint dripping down a wall. "I'm sure you'll find it anyway, so I'm sorry about the porn. You're much prettier than any of those girls." His eyes closed by themselves. It felt like he was falling. Distantly he could hear Ziva talking.

"Tony? Tony, wake up. Come on, Tony; your last words to me are not going to be about pornography; wake up." He heard rather than felt her shaking him. He wanted to answer her, but couldn't. "Tony, please, wake up. Don't leave me alone here. Tony!" She stopped shaking him and started to cry stormily. He was sorry and wished he didn't have to hurt her, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He let himself keep falling until he reached the very bottom. Death.

Present Day

Gibbs was yelling orders on a cellphone and barely hung up in time to get the call. He was standing on the deck of a Coast Guard ship heading the search for Tony and Ziva; he hadn't slept in days. He thought only of finding his team and making sure he had a full cup of coffee. He did not have time to think or treat people like they were anything more than a means to either one of those ends.

"What is it?" he snapped as he answered the phone. It was then that he found out that the raft had been found and—

"Where are they going?"

"The hospital at Pearl Harbor Naval Base." Gibbs hung up the phone and screamed at everyone around him to get him a helo to Pearl _now_! He didn't need to know anything else; if they were going to a hospital, there was at least one survivor. Within minutes he was on his way to Pearl and arrived before the rescue helo did. He was directed to the intensive care unit and was then forced to wait. He didn't know who was going to come out of the helo or what state they would be in but he knew he had to be there. He waited.

Tony woke up in what he was certain was the afterlife, since he was waking up at all. He didn't remember what had happened, only that he was certain that he was dead. Also the thirst was gone, the pain was gone and everything felt really nice and fuzzy in a good way, the way he remembered morphine drips feeling when he was alive. He wasn't alone. There was someone else there. He knew it must be God. Just then a face filled his field of vision.

God looked just like Gibbs.

"I knew it," he said, but it came out in a hoarse whisper.

"It's about time you woke up, DiNozzo." Everything kind of sucked itself in and became solid, like waking up from a dream. Tony realized that he was alive. He tried to sit up; Gibbs had to help him.

"This isn't possible," he said. "How am I still alive? I-I remember dying."

"You remember going into a coma from dehydration," said a man in a white coat, entering the room. "I'm Dr. Navarro; you're at the hospital at Pearl Harbor Naval Base." Tony kind of laughed.

"You're telling me that we were that close to Hawaii all that—" He stopped. Saying the word 'we' made him remember. Ziva. He had known all along that only one of them could have survived. And if he was here, alive…

"No," he said. "No, no; I can't be alive! I can't—I was supposed to be dead, Gibbs!" He looked at him with wide, frightened eyes. "How could I have survived unless she—she's—" Flashes flew through his brain. There was a knife, the little one in the first aid kit. The thirst, knowing it was about to be sated, at least a little. And then…his senses were starting to come back. The taste, still in his mouth, was heavy, bitter, metallic. The taste of blood.

His stomach seemed to spasm and he couldn't stop retching. It hurt like hell; he still had the wound there, but he couldn't control himself. Nothing came up, but the taste kept on washing over the back of his mouth and making him sick. He started to shake and tried to breathe, but couldn't.

Tony felt something hit his system through the IV; it weakened him and made his stomach relax and eventually the shaking stopped. Dr. Navarro and Gibbs laid him back down and sleep tried to overwhelm him, but he fought it. He grabbed Gibbs' arm.

"Boss—I'm sorry," he squeaked out. Gibbs gripped his shoulder and squeezed it.

"You're going to be alright, Tony," he said. "Just rest now." Tony went to sleep with a final whimper.

"I'm sorry about that, Agent Gibbs," the doctor said. "Next time we'll be slower to wean him off the morphine."

"It wasn't the drugs," Gibbs said. "He went through hell out there." He left the room and went down the hall to where Ducky was sitting with Ziva.

"How is he?" Ducky asked.

"He's awake," Gibbs said.

"Yes," Ducky said. "I could hear him all the way down here. He was upset?" Gibbs sat down.

"He's alright now," he said. He looked at Ziva. "How is she doing?"

"Still unresponsive," Ducky said. "But she's breathing easier. I asked the nurse for her most recent laboratory data; her hemoglobin and hematocrit are coming up and her potassium levels are improving. Her kidney function—"

"Duck," Gibbs said. "The short answer?"

"She's doing much better," Ducky said. It wasn't obvious to the naked eye. Ziva was still lying motionless on the bed, hooked up to drugs that were controlling most of her body systems. Of course they were giving her fluid as quickly as they reasonably could, along with additional blood from a transfusion. This was the third unit since she had gotten there. There were bandages on her hands and wrists.

When they had been found, after seven days at sea, Tony had been delirious, Ziva comatose. Ziva's pulse had been so weak that they had almost started CPR before realizing that she was alive. They had been airlifted to the hospital and taken straight to the intensive care unit. Gibbs had called Ducky because he didn't understand a single thing the doctors were telling him. Upon hearing the situation, Ducky had come himself. The doctors had tried to tactfully tell Gibbs that Ziva had tried to kill herself, possibly to give Tony a better chance of survival. Ducky wasn't so sure, though. He had examined her wrists himself when he had gotten to the hospital; there were cuts on her left hand and wrist, but they were all shallow. Ziva would have known that it wouldn't have been enough to cause her to exsanguinate. On her right wrist there was only one, slightly deeper, made hours before they had been found. Her hand had been on Tony's chest, with rubber band tied around her arm, preventing it from bleeding. Tony had had her blood on his face and neck. Ducky had compared both of their blood chemistries and believed that he knew what had happened. But he didn't want to talk to Gibbs and certainly not Tony about it before he was certain.

Ziva opened her eyes the next morning and looked back and forth from Gibbs to Ducky as if she didn't recognize them. Ducky reassured Gibbs that once her body had gotten back to something resembling equilibrium, she would wake up more and know who they were. In another few hours she spoke.

"Tony," she said. "Is he—"

"He is quite alright, my dear," Ducky said. "In better shape than you are. You are at the hospital in Pearl Harbor. Do you know me?"

"Ducky," Ziva said. "And Gibbs—was here."

"Yes," Ducky replied. "He's with Tony." Ziva tried to move a little and moaned in pain.

"I feel terrible," she said.

"I should imagine so," Ducky said. "Ziva, I'm sorry to have to speak to you about this so soon, but before you doze off again, I need you to ask you something and I need you to be truthful or else as soon as you are medically well they will send you to the psychiatric ward for suicide watch." He touched the bandages on her wrist. "I need to know what happened to put you in this condition. Did you actually try to kill yourself or was there another reason?" Ziva closed her eyes and thought back. Her memory was a little fuzzy, but she knew what had happened.

_Ziva sat up from crying on Tony's shoulder and slapped herself on the head. Dehydration had affected her too. Tony was still breathing, and he wasn't dying from the gunshot wound; it was because he hadn't had anything to drink in almost five days. He was slipping into a coma. She looked at their last bottle of water; there was barely two sips left. He would need more. And she had just thought of a way to get it to him. There was a blade in the first aid kit. She cut the small artery on the inside of her thumb and let the blood run into the bottle. Tony moved a little and made a few wordless sounds. He could die within hours. Once her blood had doubled the contents of the bottle, she shook Tony vigorously. He opened his eyes for a brief second, made some noises and then they closed again. She sat him up; he could choke and die, but he was going to die anyway if she didn't get fluid into him. She held the bottle to his lips and poured in a small amount, then pressed up on the angle of his chin and his neck, forcing him to swallow. She did this several times; he swallowed the last bit on his own. She waited for some time to see if it would make him sick; it didn't. His breathing became less shallow and he moved a little more. It was helping him._

_He would need more, still. She didn't have any more water to give him. Drinking undiluted blood would probably make him sick. But again, she had no choice. She cut open her hand, from one end to the other, cupped it and held it to his mouth, so that the blood would run in. Tony drank it eagerly. He held her hand closer and pressed his mouth to the cut itself, sucking the blood out. Eventually she had to stop him and held a piece of cloth to her hand to make it stop bleeding. She waited again. He was restless and tossed his head a little. She held him against her and stroked his back._

"_It's going to be ok," she said. "You need all that blood. Your body is thirsty. It won't kill you. Just try to hold it down." He did. Night fell. His breathing got easier and his pulse slowed down. He was still restless, but better. After a few hours she gave him more. It was too difficult for her to get blood to flow out of her hand, so she made a small, shallow cut at her wrist. It gave him enough blood to make a difference before it started to clot. When Tony was finished, she wrapped a rubber band around her arm proximal to the cut and stopped the bleeding by holding pressure. Tony coughed and choked a little and she thought he was going throw up, but she calmed him and he held it down and let his body use it. His eyes opened back up, but they were glazed over; he couldn't talk and didn't know where he was or who she was. It was probably a good thing; she knew he would kill her if he knew she was doing this. _

_Now she was feeling weaker and desperate for water. She had lost track of time and when the sun rose, she didn't know if it had been one day or a week. The way everything was trying to fade out, she knew she could probably only do it once more before going into hypovolemic shock. Tony was awake enough to follow commands. He would open his eyes when she told him to, though he still didn't see her. At this point she was too weak to hold the blade steady enough to cut the right place. She held her arm down, below heart level, let as much blood as she could drain into it, and wrapped the rubber band around her elbow. It was the only way she could control how much Tony would take as she was fairly sure she would pass out after this. She told Tony to hold the blade and ran her wrist against it, then held it to his mouth. Sure enough, she lost consciousness before she could even lie down beside him. She wanted to tell him that she loved him. But surely he would know._

Ducky smiled and nodded. "That is what I thought," he said. "And, to some degree, hoped."

"Is Tony angry?"

"I don't know how much he remembers. He hasn't spoken much. But now that you're awake, I'm sure he will want to see you. In fact, I think I'll go talk to him now. Jethro has been sitting with him. I will be right back, my dear." He left.

Tony was staring at the ceiling of the room, watching the shadows of birds swoop by on the walls. He was dimly aware that Gibbs was in the room. He hadn't spoken to him again in the day since he had woken up and Gibbs hadn't tried to get him to talk. Ducky came in with a soft knock on the open door.

"Hello, Anthony," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Tony said, not taking his eyes off the ceiling. "Just fine."

"I have some good news for you. Ziva has woken up for a bit and if you want, I imagine you can go and see her." Tony sat up and looked at Ducky in shock.

"She's alive?" he said. "You mean—she's not—but I was so sure that—"

"You didn't know that she was alive?" Ducky said, equally surprised. He looked at Gibbs. "Why didn't you tell him?" Gibbs shrugged.

"I did," he said. "Guess he didn't hear me."

"Well it's no wonder he's been so depressed. Yes, she's very much alive and doing splendidly. She's just down the hall; do you want to go and talk to her?"

"No," Tony said, quickly. He lay back and stared at the ceiling again. Ducky didn't know what to say to this.

"Why ever not?" he asked. "I'm sure she would like to see you."

"I don't care. I'm not going to see her." Ducky thought for a moment.

"She told me what happened," Ducky said. "I know it can't be an easy thing to deal with."

"I don't want to talk about it." He rolled over and Ducky couldn't see his face. "They said I'd be moved to a regular room later, didn't they?"

"Something like that," Gibbs said.

"Good," Tony said. He wouldn't speak any more.

Ducky went back to Ziva's room; she was asleep when he got there. When she woke up, he told her that Tony wasn't feeling up to visiting just then.

"He is angry at me," Ziva said.

"It's a frightening thing, being lost at sea," Ducky said. "I know there are feelings that come up now that you are in a safe place. But I'm sure that once he sees you, he will feel better."

Tony was moved to a regular room that day and seemed relieved. He didn't talk much more, but he was more relaxed than he had been ever since Ducky had told him that Ziva was right down the hall. Ziva was starting to regain her strength and could stand for short periods of time and so everyone thought it would be ok if she went and visited Tony and Gibbs. She was taken up to the fourth floor in a wheelchair and was none too happy about it, but she stood up and walked when she got into Tony's room. He was still asleep. Gibbs was happy to see her and embraced her tightly.

"Good to have you back, David," he said.

"I'm sorry for putting everyone through this," she said. "In some sense, it was my fault."

"We caught the bad guy," Gibbs said. "All the girls on the ship have been returned to their homes. Without you, their families never would have seen them again. You did good."

"Then it wasn't a total loss." She turned to Tony. "He's going to be alright, isn't he?"

"He will be just fine. He probably won't have to stay beyond a couple more days." Ducky helped Ziva into a chair beside him. "He'll be awake presently."

When Tony woke up, the first thing he saw was Ziva's face. She looked very thin and sallow, but still beautiful when she smiled.

"Hi, Tony," she said. "I'm so glad to see you awake. It's been awhile since—"

"Get out," Tony said. Ziva was startled.

"What?"

"Leave. Get out of my room. I don't want to see you. I told you I didn't want to see her," he snapped at Ducky and Gibbs. Surprise was starting to give way to pain on Ziva's face.

"Tony," she said. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"I don't want to talk about it with you. I want you to get out of my room and stay away from me as long as I have to be here and I never, ever want to see you again." He glared at her with dark anger. "Do you understand me or do I need to call a Hebrew translator? Get the hell away from me!"

Ziva got to her feet so fast that she had to grab the IV pole for support and Gibbs rushed over to catch her. She returned Tony's angry expression with tears in her eyes and then turned to leave.

"Oh, and I want my ring back too," he added. She took it off and threw it at him. Even blinded by tears, she had a good aim and Tony had to put up his arm to keep it from hitting him in the eye. Gibbs helped Ziva back to the wheelchair outside and a nurse took her back to the ICU. He didn't say anything to Tony when he got back into the room. The look he gave him was enough and Tony knew what he was saying. He didn't reply. He got up and went into the bathroom, dragging his own IV pole behind him. He looked at himself in the mirror; he was all red and shaking a little from that confrontation. That wasn't the only thing he saw in the mirror. Deep down inside, he was a monster, one that would cut her open and drink her blood, use her for his own needs. He remembered the feel of the knife in his hand, her blood flowing into his mouth and drinking it greedily, taking away her life to feed his own. He could still see her eyes looking at him; she had been too weak, unable to stop him. He was too scared to be anywhere near her; he knew that he could kill her. He had almost killed her this time. He couldn't let her marry him, knowing what he was capable of doing to her. No, he had to make sure that she stayed far away from him. He figured that that little display would be enough. It had almost broken him inside to see her in so much pain because of him, but it was better than seeing her dead. He used the facilities, washed his hands, washed his face and came back out. He was alone in the room. Good. It was better that way.

Gibbs went back to the ICU with Ziva, but didn't go in the room. He watched the nurse get her settled in again, and then stood outside until he saw her turn her back, lie down and curl up with her knees to her chest. He didn't have to see her cry to know what she was doing. He went to the nurse's station and asked them not to disturb her unless it was medically necessary; she just needed some time alone.

Ziva cried for a long time, half of it not really knowing why. Things just kept pouring out of her, although this was the worst of it. Did Tony really hate her just because she had fed him her own blood to keep him alive? Was that so disgusting to him? Would he rather be dead? Added to that were all the emotions she had had to keep shut up to maintain her sanity; she felt scared and angry and frustrated…and very, very thirsty.

Gibbs was outside in the waiting room, trying not to think. He knew that this wasn't anything that he should get involved in. He had found the two of them and they were both alive; he had done his job. Their relationship was their own business. While he was thumbing through an old fishing magazine, he got a call on his cell phone. It was Ziva.

"Hi, Ziva," he said.

"Hi, Gibbs," she said. Her voice was still tearful and there was just a hint of a needy tone that made her sound like a little girl.

"Doing ok?"

"I'm alright. Hey, Gibbs?" She started to sound a little sheepish.

"What do you need?"

"They're letting me actually drink now, so…would you mind bringing me a soda?"

"Of course. Sprite or orange soda? Coke would be too hard on your stomach, trust me."

"Sprite. Thanks, Gibbs."

"Of course."

He took her the Sprite and sat down beside her bed; she drank the whole thing in less than two minutes and then put the can down with a sigh of deep relief.

"Want another one?"

"I'm fine. Thanks."

"Do you want to slap him or should I?" Ziva looked down and started to tear up again, although she controlled herself.

"If he does not want to marry me, that is his choice," she said. "This has been very hard on both of us and I am just glad that he is alright." Gibbs paused for a moment.

"He only survived because you had him drinking your blood, right?"

"I had no choice. He was going into a coma and would have died within hours." A tear dripped down her cheek. "I suppose he could have been a little…gentler about ending it. But I didn't realize that he would be so angry." Gibbs nodded.

"I think you should try talking to him again," he said. "Does he understand why you did it?"

"What else could I be trying to do? Turn him into a vampire?"

"Maybe you should ask him." Ziva shook her head.

"I can't," she said. "He won't talk to me."

"He said that he didn't want to see you." He handed her the phone in the room. "Dial 9 and then the room number. It's 423." Ziva hesitantly dialed and waited for Tony to pick up. He finally did after ten rings.

"What?"

"Tony, it's me," Ziva said. To her relief, Tony didn't immediately hang up.

"What do you want?"

"To talk to you. At least this way you don't have to see me. I think you owe me that."

"There's nothing to talk about. We're over."

"Can't you even tell me why?" There was a pause.

"I can't live with someone like you."

"Tony, is it really that bad?" she asked. "You're alive; does it really matter what I did to keep you that way?"

"Shouldn't you be angry at _me_? Why don't you yell at me or something? Call me a selfish, inhuman bastard. Surely it would make you feel better and we wouldn't be having this conversation anymore." His voice wavered just slightly.

"Why would I say those things to you? You came and risked everything to save me. You went without water for five days so I could have what little we had. You could never be selfish, Tony. You're wonderful." There was another pause and she thought she could even hear him crying a little.

"Is that what you think?" he replied. "Ziva, why the hell do you think you have bandages on your wrists?"

"Because I didn't have anything else to give you and I wasn't going to let you die," she said. "So I…well, you know. I guess you're angry about that."

"I drank your blood."

"Yes. I was better hydrated than you and I could handle the blood loss."

"I thought I would die before I lost it enough to do…that. Ziva, I—I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She was sure he was crying now.

"You didn't do anything wrong," she said. "I love you and I wanted you to live. It was my choice."

"Ziva, what kind of drugs do they have you on? I remember what happened; I had the knife in my hand. I made the cut and you were so out of it that you couldn't stop me. I—I could have killed you! Do you really want to live the rest of your life with someone like that?" He continued yelling, but Ziva didn't hear him; she was too confused.

"So you remember that?" she asked.

"Yes. You do too?"

"Yes, I do. What you don't remember, apparently, are the three other times before that when I gave you blood. You were just starting to wake up that last time; I put the knife in your hand because I was too weak to hold it. I put the rubber band on my arm so you wouldn't drink too much. I did it all myself, Tony. You had nothing to do with it." Silence. She let this sink in.

"So," Tony said slowly after a minute. "I didn't do that to you?"

"If anyone forced anything on anyone, it was me. You were too out of it to agree to it, so I made you drink until your instincts took over. I'm sorry if I upset you. And I'm sorry you remembered it like that."

"Hold on a minute." She heard him put the phone down and waiting, assuming someone was there to take his vital signs or something. Then she heard his voice again, coming from the door.

"You mean it?" he said. He was breathless and leaning on the doorframe. "I didn't put you here?"

"No, of course not," Ziva said. "Tony, I think you dropped something back in your room." She pointed to the IV tubing, which seemed to have come loose from the bag of fluid and was now dragging behind him dripping on the floor.

"I don't care." He came closer to her. "Ziva, why would you do something like that? I mean, I'm glad I didn't do it to you, but you still could have died." She looked at him with her eyes full of emotion.

"I didn't think I could live like that," she said. "Not knowing that you let yourself die so that I could live after I was the one who made you put yourself in danger. I would rather die." Tony sighed.

"Wow," he said. "I have made an ass of myself many times in the past, but I think this one has to have made me the biggest ass on the planet."

"I'll second that, DiNozzo." They both just realized that Gibbs was still in the room. "Glad we got this all worked out, though." He stood to leave. "You've got ten minutes. Don't do anything stupid." He left, closing the door behind him. Tony was still standing halfway between the door and her bed; he came to stand next to her.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I was a bastard."

"Yes," Ziva said, nodding. "Yes, you were."

"I'm so sorry for hurting you."

"You did."

"What can I do to make it up to you?" Ziva felt herself unexpectedly start to cry again.

"Hold me," she whispered. Tony sat beside her and let her settle into his arms and cry. "I was so scared, Tony."

"I was, too," he said. "That was by far the worst situation I've ever been in."

"Sometimes when I try to sleep, it still feels like the boat moving up and down, all the time."

"I woke up this morning scared," Tony said. "I was afraid that this was all a hallucination or something and I was going to wake up in the middle of the ocean again." Ziva raised her head from his shoulder and touched his cheek.

"But we're both alive," she said.

There was a knock at the door; apparently, Tony's nurse had called the ICU trying to find her patient and was now there to bring him back up to the floor. Tony waved to Ziva and blew her a kiss as the nurse led him out, scolding him about his IV. Gibbs came back in after a few minutes with another soda for Ziva and Ducky followed him. He was relieved to hear that all had been resolved and things were back to normal.

The next day, Tony came to Ziva's room at lunchtime; his IV had been taken out and he was wearing regular clothes. Ziva had been in a regular room on a general unit since the night before.

"They're discharging me this evening," he said. "Just waiting on the paperwork. So I thought that I would come and eat dinner with you." Ziva was very happy to see him. It had been a very emotional day, but now she was happy to just be close to him, talking to him. All the lovely things that she enjoyed about their relationship, now colored by the happy fact that they were no longer literally dying of thirst in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. She spent most of the time looking at him and barely picked at her lunch, the fact that it was hospital food notwithstanding. Tony didn't eat much either.

"Care to venture a guess as to what the 'cobbler' part of this peach cobbler is?" Ziva nibbled a bite.

"I think it's leftovers from this morning's pancakes," she said. Tony went back to eating his meat loaf.

"There's, uh, something I want to ask you," he said, after a few more minutes. "I guess you know what."

"Yes," Ziva said. "But I want to hear you say it anyway." He moved the bedside table with their trays on it and sat beside her, took her hand and looked into her eyes.

"Ziva," he said. "I love you more than anything else in this world and I can't imagine living my life without you. Will you marry me?" Out of his jacket pocket, he pulled her engagement ring. Ziva smiled.

"Yes," she said. "You know how much I love you, Tony. There's nothing I want more than to marry you." Tony slipped the ring on to her finger and then grinned.

"Ok, then; let's go." Ziva looked at him like he was crazy.

"I'm sorry?"

"You said you would marry me. No time like the present. Let's get married."

"Tony, I know we were planning on having a private ceremony, but even that takes a little planning."

"Ok," Tony said. He beckoned to Gibbs and Ducky, who had been waiting out in the hallway. Ducky was carrying a bouquet of flowers. "Here are the two witnesses required to make a wedding legal. There's a chapel on the ground floor with a chaplain waiting for us. Here are your flowers. And you're already wearing white." Amazingly, the front wrap-around hospital gown she was wearing was still a brilliant shade of white and had no stains. Ziva looked at him in shock, but Tony knew her well enough to know that she was pleased. Ducky handed her the bouquet of red and orange flowers with a smile.

"You look beautiful, my dear," he said. "Like a bride on her wedding day." Ziva looked at Tony who smiled.

"I know this is kind of sudden," he said. "And maybe this isn't the best place to be doing this. But I don't want to take the chance that I'm going to do something stupid before we do this," he said. "I want you to be mine forever, starting today. Will you?" Ziva's smile was enough of an answer for him. The nurse disconnected her IV and Tony put an arm around her shoulders and led her to the elevators. The four of them went to the ground floor and into the chapel, where one of the hospital's chaplains waited at the front, smiling. Tony took Ziva's hand and led her down the aisle to the altar.

A wedding in a hospital chapel was a rather strange occurrence and it looked like half of the staff was standing outside the doors very quietly watching by the time the chaplain got to the vows.

"Do you, Ziva, take Tony to be your lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold, till death do you part?"

"I do." She glowed as she spoke. Tony was overjoyed. He had been worried that she would reject the idea as ridiculous; on the contrary, it seemed to have made her happier than anything else.

"And do you, Tony, take Ziva to be your lawful wedded wife, to have and to hold, till death do you part?"

"Even after that," Tony said, giving her a meaningful look. "I do." The chaplain nodded to him; he took Ziva in his arms and kissed her. The onlookers clapped and cheered. "Sorry," Tony whispered. "Guess I didn't do a very good job of canteloping with you." Ziva laughed, wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a deeper kiss.

They heard many congratulations from the nurses, doctors and ancillary staff that had gathered and, after a bit of encouragement and explanation of the tradition, Ziva threw her bouquet; it was caught by a delighted young intern, who then winked at one of the respiratory therapists who was also there. When Tony escorted his wife back to her room, there were many cheers and congratulations from the floor staff. Ziva was a little surprised herself that she was so happy. It was nothing like she had pictured, but she knew why Tony had done it. When they had a moment alone in her room, she put her arms around him and smiled.

"You never did know anything about timing," she said. "But I love you so much." Tony felt deliriously happy. He had everything he could possibly want there in his arms.

"We're still going to Michigan," he said.

"When? We need to get back to work, now that my mission fell through."

"Not any time soon," Gibbs said, entering the room unnoticed as usual. "You two won't be fit for duty again for at least two weeks. Go. Have a little fun."

"Jethro, honestly, you should know better than to just burst in on a pair of newlyweds." Ducky embraced Ziva and shook Tony's hand. "Congratulations to the both of you. I wish you a life together full of unparalleled happiness."

"I know it will be," Tony said. "I mean, we both lived through this. I think we can make it through anything." He put his arms around Ziva and didn't let her go until they were sitting on her bed, after everyone had left, fast asleep with a smile on her face.

Epilogue

Ziva opened the refrigerator and poured another glass of grape Kool-Aid into her clear plastic cup.

"Do you want more, Tony?"

"Do you even have to ask?" They were in Michigan, at Tony's cabin on the lake, halfway through their honeymoon. Their first night there in the cabin, Tony had woken up at about two o'clock desperate for grape Kool-Aid and had driven thirty minutes to get to the closest town with an all-night store and bought enough to get a soccer team through the World Cup. They had gone through two pitchers already.

The lingering desire for water was strange. The hunger, the drive to eat everything quickly because it might not be there tomorrow, could be controlled. Once their stomachs were full, they could ignore the nagging need to eat. But the thirst—Ziva started feeling thirsty again the moment she put her cup down. She was working on controlling that; for now, she and Tony were content to spend more time drinking than anything—well, almost anything—else.

They had spend the first couple of nights at a hotel to let the cabin air out and their routine had been simple; make love, sleep, wake up, eat and drink, make love again, go back to sleep. By the time they moved into the cabin, they were ready for a change and so now after making love they usually stayed awake for awhile. There was no TV there, but Tony had bought a pack of cards and spent their time awake teaching Ziva the card games he used to play with the maids and the chauffer when he was a kid. He was now deeply regretting teaching her how to slap cards and often the game had to stop for a minute so he could ice his fingers. Ziva always apologized profusely and took his hand to try to soothe it. Of course Tony would then complain of pain in other places and ask her to soothe them and it usually ended with them making love again, sometimes on top of the stack of cards. Then they would argue about whose cards had been whose and they usually decided that a person got to keep any cards that had gotten stuck to his or her back. Ziva ended up with four aces once with this system and proceeded to beat him soundly.

They did talk about what had happened. Ziva had reluctantly told him what she remembered of being on Kuwat's ship. It had infuriated Tony, but it did seem to help her to talk about it. They were both slowly healing from it and it helped to be with the one other person who understood.

There was a fire going; Michigan was having one more cold snap before May came and brought summer with it. They had roasted marshmallows and Tony had introduced Ziva to the wonder of s'mores. At first she had asked if they were similar to smurfs and her mind got stuck on the idea that they were going to be roasting small colorful creatures, but Tony explained the concept to her and showed her how to make one and it was all they had had for dinner. Then Tony let his chocolate bar melt to a state where it would drip, accidentally on purpose let it fall on Ziva's neck and licked it off of her. She did the same to him; clothes came off as they found more interesting places to lick chocolate off of and they made love yet again, this time rather stickily.

They had showered (together) and now had on warm clothes and were just drinking their Kool-Aid and cuddling. Time seemed to have stopped, with them together in a place where they had all they could want and they were happier than they could ever remember being. Tony sometimes wondered if they had actually died; maybe this was heaven. It was certainly the closest he had ever come to it.

"Whose apartment are we moving into?" Ziva asked him. "Mine is bigger."

"How am I supposed to move into your apartment? You've got all your pretty things and mine is just—well, you've seen it. You could beautify my place instead of me destroying yours."

"Ok," Ziva said. "I like your apartment. Just needs a woman's touch."

"You want to get a dog or something?" Tony asked. "Or maybe a cat. You seem like a cat person."

"What?"

"You know; there are cat people and dog people. I think you could go either way, but I can just picture you curled up on the couch with a book and a cup of tea with a cat purring in your lap." Ziva smiled; the thought was nice.

"We could get both," she said. "A dog would fit you better. But maybe start with a cat; they're easier to housetrain."

"We can go to a pet store as soon as we get back," Tony said. For a moment they were quiet; the fire crackled and Tony rubbed Ziva's back.

"You don't think Ducky was serious about making us go to therapy," Ziva said, after dozing off for a few minutes.

"He probably was," Tony said. "We might have to do it just to get our jobs back."

"That's ridiculous. We risk our lives every day; just because we actually came close to dying this time doesn't mean we are mentally damaged." Tony held her just a little tighter.

"I think it might be good to talk about it," he said. "That was scary as hell." He thought for a moment. "But, you know, I'd do it all again if I had to." Ziva sat up and gave him a look of disbelief.

"You would?" she asked. Tony nodded solemnly.

"For you," he said. Ziva beamed at him and, after a few more drinks of grape Kool-Aid, kissed him. The fire crackled and the light flickered as their shadows cast against the wall got so close as to be inseparable. It was what honeymoons were for, after all.


End file.
